Salon.com > Samantha Gross

Who is vying to replace NYC’s Bloomberg in 2013?

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 12:57:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City's 2013 mayoral race doesn't fully kick off until after voters are done picking a president. But some of the city's top political players are already jockeying for position, preparing to introduce themselves to voters who haven't paid much attention to who, exactly, will succeed Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor who has defined City Hall for more than a decade.

Bloomberg's successor will face significant challenges — among them a projected budget hole of at least $3.1 billion. And when the victor is sworn in on Jan. 1, 2014, it will be the first time since Bloomberg took office 12 years ago that the mayor likely won't have the financial and philanthropic resources to fund favorite initiatives out of his or her own pocket.

It's too early to make any assumptions about the race, political analysts warn. At this point in the 2001 contest, no one considered Bloomberg a likely prospect. But decision time is approaching — and there's a chance that it could be sooner than in previous election cycles. With no obvious Republican standard-bearers, it's possible that the most significant contest will be the Democratic primary, and there's been speculation the state Legislature could schedule it as early as June.

Irene: Wet, deadly and expensive, but no monster

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:59:00 +0000

The storm that had been Hurricane Irene crossed into Canada overnight but wasn't yet through with the U.S., where flood waters threatened Vermont towns and New Yorkers who returned to work had to make do with a slowly reopening transit system.

The storm left millions without power across much of the Eastern Seaboard, left at least two dozen dead and forced airlines to cancel about 9,000 flights. It never became the big-city nightmare forecasters and public officials had warned about, but it still had the ability to surprise.

Many of the worst effects arose from rains that fell inland, not the highly anticipated storm surge along the coasts. Residents of Pennsylvania and New Jersey nervously watched waters rise as hours' worth of rain funneled into rivers and creeks. Normally narrow ribbons of water turned into raging torrents in Vermont and upstate New York late Sunday, tumbling with tree limbs, cars and parts of bridges.

"This is not over," President Barack Obama said from the Rose Garden.

Hundreds of Vermonters were told to leave their homes after Irene dumped several inches of rain on the landlocked state. Video posted on Facebook showed a 141-year-old covered bridge in Rockingham swept away by the roiling, muddy Williams River. In another video, an empty car somersaulted down a river in Bennington.

Frigid hell night on the A train

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 01:45:00 +0000

It took hours for Christopher Mullen to get off a plane from sunny Cancun and on to a half-empty subway car, his only way home. It would be another eight hours and more -- a night spent huddled under a thin blanket on the frigid, grungy car -- before he could get off the A train.

His feet soaked to the bone, with no food, water and hardly any heat, Mullen and 400 others lived through a New York nightmare on an elevated subway track, one of hundreds of stories of hardship caused by the crushing snowstorm that dropped more than 2 feet of snow on the Northeast.

By the time they got on the subway shortly before 1 a.m. Monday near Kennedy Airport, Mullen and his girlfriend were well into their ordeal battling the blizzard of December 2010.

Their flight landed two hours late. With snow whirling around the terminal, the airport train was down. There were no taxis. Wearing just a light spring jacket, Mullen stood in the snow and attempted to dig his car out from long-term parking. The only result: feet and legs that were soaking wet.

Mosque near ground zero divides Sept. 11 relatives

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:43:00 +0000

Talat Hamdani traveled to Mecca to pray that her missing son, an EMT, was safe in the days after 9/11. She held out hope that his Muslim background had led to his detention as a suspect, considering it better than the alternative.

When part of his body was returned to her -- his lower half shattered into 34 pieces -- it was final proof he had indeed been killed when Islamic extremists brought down the World Trade Center. As Americans take sides over plans to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque blocks away, Hamdani says it feels personal.

"Why are we paying the price? Why are we being ostracized? Our loved ones died," she said at her Lake Grove, N.Y., home. "America was founded on the grounds of religious freedom," and opposition to the cultural center "is un-American. It's unethical. And it is wrong."

The thousands of relatives of the 2,976 victims have no single representative and no unified voice, even as another 9/11 anniversary approaches. The conflict is dividing a group that in many ways has never been united, with some saying the cultural center would reopen old wounds too close to hallowed ground and others say that opposing it is tantamount to bigotry.

JetBlue attendant could get prison for grand exit

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 22:22:00 +0000

No fed-up worker has ever said "I've had it" quite like Steven Slater.

Prosecutors say the JetBlue flight attendant flipped out over a fight with an agitated traveler Monday, cursing at the passengers before grabbing some beer from the plane's galley and making a grand exit down the emergency slide at Kennedy Airport. He has been charged with felonies and elevated to folk-hero status by thousands who shrugged off allegations that Slater endangered others and praised him for his take-this-job-and-shove-it moment.

Slater, whose father was an airline pilot, wore a slight smile Tuesday as he was led into a Queens courtroom to be arraigned on charges of criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and trespassing, counts that carry a maximum penalty of seven years in prison. The judge set his bail at $2,500, which remained unpaid late Tuesday afternoon.

The 38-year-old airline veteran, who lives steps from the beach in Queens a few miles from the airport, had been flying long enough to see much of the gleam of the air travel experience tarnished by frayed nerves, rising fees, plummeting airline profits and packed cabins.